Delightful discovery

Last spring as I was walking through the woods behind our house, I noticed some newly sprouted plants poking through the leaf liter that looked suspiciously like daylilies. Always a sucker for free flowers, I quickly got a spade and a bucket and set forth on digging them up and replanting them in various places around our yard. I didn't have any idea what kind of dayliliy that were or if they were even truly daylilies at all (since they never bloomed in the shade of the dense trees), but I figured I'd take the risk and put them in. Lo and behold, I have been rewarded with a delightful discovery! The flowers on the daylilies are the standard orange color, but it's petals are uniquely triple layered! The blooms are delicate and beautiful to look at!




My discovery really makes me wonder what sort of history these flowers have. I am fairly certain these are not native to the woods and were indeed planted by someone at sometime. If the gardener did not just simply discard them into the woods, was there a garden there at some point that has since become swallowed up by the trees? Whose were the hands that broke the soil and tucked the bulbs into their soil beds? Was it a young mother, a elderly grandmother, a hard-working farmer, an inquisitive child? What did our property look like at the time the flowers were planted (and how long ago was it)? Was there another house here at one time that has long since disappeared?

Ahhhh . . . how I would love to know the history hidden within our own backyard. It is so amazing to have a physical reminder of the fact that although time marches on, a bit of our legacy can be left behind even when we are unaware . . .